Task force says keep Y open
If not, build a new facility or give the building back
POTTSTOWN » The citizens group the regional YMCA organization had hoped would help smooth its November 2017 decision to close the facility on North Adams Street has instead joined the opposition. On Thursday, the task force assembled in December by the YMCA to make recommendations on how Y programs can be
maintained without holding them in the building on North Adams Street, released its recommendations.
Known officially as the Pottstown Branch Transition Committee, their recommendations are counter to the directions given at the group’s formation, that keeping the building open not be included among the options they recommend.
Nevertheless, the recommendations are the exact opposite.
In the document sent to the board of directors of the Philadelphia Freedom Valley YMCA, the 18-member group made the following recommendations:
1) “To fulfill the YMCA mission, renovate and restore the existing facility in the borough of Pottstown to its intended use, or;
2) “Build a new facility, with equivalent services, in the borough of Pottstown, or;
3) “Return the existing YMCA facility to the community along with the funding equivalent to the net asset value at the time of the initial merger with the Phoenixville YMCA. The intended outcome will be to operate as a community center for the benefit of the region, centered on Pottstown. In the 10 years since the first merger, it is clear that the Pottstown YMCA has been an afterthought. If we are going to start over as a community, there needs to be significant compensation.
4) “Create a larger community effort to re-imagine the YMCA for Pottstown. Given the Philadelphia Freedom Valley budgets on a calendar year, and has indicated to the task force that June 29 was arbitrary, keep the Pottstown YMCA functional until Dec. 31, 2018. In that interval, the task force, along with community and county/state/ federal consultation will develop a strategy to overcome the facility issue.
This course of action was taken, according to the letter, “after considerable research, discussion and feedback from the community,” from which the committee concluded “that a decision to close the facility, without
“We determine that the Philadelphia Freedom Valley YMCA leadership neglected to fulfill its commitment to the community of Pottstown by not providing adequate resources to sustain the current facility.” Pottstown Branch Transition Committee
local input or representation, is unacceptable.”
But the task force didn’t stop there.
“In addition, we determine that the Philadelphia Freedom Valley YMCA leadership neglected to fulfill its commitment to the community of Pottstown by not providing adequate resources to sustain the current facility,” the committee wrote.
In a “fact sheet” Philadelphia Freedom Valley YMCA CEO Shaun Elliott provided earlier this week to The Mercury, he wrote “some members of the committee wish to focus on keeping the building open. The Y appreciates and respects all points of view. The Y’s conclusion is that it must focus on alternative ways to deliver its important services.”
A member of that task force, Don Smale, spoke to Pottstown Borough Council Wednesday about his thinking on the matter.
“The community was taken by surprise and the decision was made without any input from the community,” Smale said.
“There’s a whole bunch of anger in this community, I’ve been talking to a lot of people, and the reason for the anger is the board didn’t reach out to the community and say ‘hey we’ve got a problem, we need some help, let’s talk about this so we can figure out how to keep the Pottstown Y open
for the next 138 years,” he said.
Smale said he and other members went into the committee hoping to find a way they could help. “But the more we dug into it, the more we realized there was something that just didn’t sit right.”
Looking at documents that showed that the Y was “basically breaking even at the time of the first merger” in 2007, Smale said “the question then becomes how do you go from breaking even to a $700,000 loss in 10 years, when the purpose of a merger is to improve the financial operations of the organization?”
In the fact sheet provided to The Mercury , that description is contested.
Elliott, who had previously told The Mercury “I have no first-hand knowledge about decisions made 10 years ago,” wrote that the Y had operational deficits in 2004 and in 2005 even took $350,000 out of an endowment to cover operating losses, and only broke even in 2006.
“This meant the Y was unable to fund any needed capital work,” Elliott wrote.
After the Y merged with Phoenixville in 2007, the $1.8 million for the building was spent on “a number of member-facing improvements (which) were prioritized and made to attract new membership and some of the underlying infrastructure challenges could not be addressed.”
In the five years since merging with Philadelphia-Freedom Valley, “the total operational deficit for the Pottstown branch has been $3,499,000. Additionally, Freedom Valley has put $1,027,000 into capital for the building,” Elliott wrote.
“This totals a $4,527,000 subsidy over the last fiveyear period (2013-2017). As part of its annual fundraising campaign, $1,190,000 was raised over this fiveyear period and is included in the operating revenues,” he wrote. “Without those donations, the total operating deficit would have been $5,700,000.”
“One of the things that we found out was a shock to us was that Freedom Valley
charges back to Pottstown about $700,000 a year in admin fees,” Smale told council. “It’s coincidental that the operating loss equals the charge back.”
The operational numbers “really started to tank” after 2012 when the merged Pottstown and Phoenixville Y merged with Philadelphia Freedom Valley, Smale said.
“Pressed on that,” Smale said Philadelphia Freedom Valley YMCA Shaun Elliott replied “‘well it’s not really the operational loss. We would fund the operational loss, it’s the building.’”
Pressed again by members of the task force, Smale said Elliott said in the normal course of events, about $600,000 a year would be allocated for maintenance and upkeep and capital costs on the 48-year-old building.
Noting that Elliott has said the building needs $11 million of work in the next 10 years, the regular allocation for maintenance would cover $6 million of that cost, Smale said.
“So now what we’ve got is a $5 million deficit over the course of 10 years, not an $11 million deficit over the course of 10 years,” said Smale.
Smale said the regional Y is “digging their heels in” and moving quickly to move things like child care and swimming to alternate locations.
“From what I can see, they’re trying to accelerate their move out of Pottstown because of the push back that’s coming from the community,” he said.
“The question then becomes how do you go from breaking even to a $700,000 loss in 10 years, when the purpose of a merger is to improve the financial operations of the organization?” Don Smale, member of the YMCA transition committee